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Benzodiazepine use in breast cancer survivors: Findings from a consecutive series of 1,000 patients
Oncology (Karger), 09/02/2011
Clinical Article
Vaidyaa R et al. – Anxiety appears to be a common explanation for relatively high rates of benzodiazepine use in breast cancer survivors. This finding merits further study.
Methods- Medical records of 1,000 consecutive breast cancer survivors who were no longer receiving adjuvant chemotherapy reviewed
- Among those patients, 7.9% (95% confidence interval 6.2–9.6; higher than the 3% rate in the general population) were receiving benzodiazepines
- Lorazepam was most commonly prescribed
- 68 patients were cancer free at last visit, and 51 had not been taking benzodiazepines prior to their cancer diagnosis
- Anxiety was single most frequent reason for initiating and continuing benzodiazepines